PEORIA Ill. – Members of Peoria’s City County Board of Health unanimously agreed during a special meeting yesterday to terminate its agreement with Cure Violence.
Peoria City County Health Department has spent about two years trying to find a stable nonprofit to adopt the violence prevention program – but has had no success.
Cure Violence has been a part of the P-C-C-H-D – training outreach workers and violence interrupters.
But with Thursday evening’s decision, Cure Violence Outreach Worker Candus Irby tells 25 News those people are now unemployed.
“We’re here to support them and to help them and all of the participants, or possible participants that we work with now, they get nothing,” Cure Violence Outreach Worker, Candus Irby.
Cure Violence Interrupter, Terrill Rickmon, shares his disappointment with the immediate termination of the program.
“It doesn’t seem important to them, it’s all about funding, or whatever their reasonings or purposes are – it’s about funding, it’s about money, that’s what it has always been about,” Cure Violence Interrupter, Terrill Rickmon.
Cure Violence leaders say even without the program, they plan on keeping their “boots on the ground” to find other solutions.
